Noyes: I think there is need in every com- munity, even in suburban communities that look well-to-do. We try to incorporate a whole range of incomes within our buildings. For example, in Lynchburg High School in Vir- ginia, we placed elderly housing on the up- per three floors and 2-story townhouse units for families on the first two floors. The idea— and it took a while to convince the state fi- nancing agency—is that you don’t segregate communities by age so you shouldn’t seg- regate individual buildings by age. Interest- ingly, we went back a couple years later and I spoke to some of the elderly people who live there and one of them said the community aspect is a benefit; if she needs something from the store, there’s always a kid in the building who’s willing to get it for her. And the community aspect is reciprocal in that neighbors benefit from her babysitting.
Central Grammar’s aluminum replacement
windows, which were installed 40 years ago, recently were replaced with custom-made wood, single-glazed, true—and historically appropriate—mullioned, single-hung windows. Although the new windows and installation cost twice as much as an aluminum replace- ment window, they are considered 100-year windows. This photo shows the new custom- made windows above the aluminum replace- ment windows.
An interior view of a Central Grammar unit.
How do you maintain af- fordability when you’re retrofitting buildings that are not only old, but also weren’t built to be residential spaces?
r:
Noyes: The most widely used method is to get subsidies from the government, state or federal or both. Usually it’s a combination of a lot of things; it’s complicated and takes a lot of time. The $18 million development we just completed took five years to get all the subsidies in place. The local permitting was easy but pushing the right political buttons to get the subsidies is tough. One of the things we’ve done to keep
housing costs down for homebuyers is to pre-sell units. We say to the community we’re going to provide moderate-income condominiums and we’re going to put deed restrictions on those units so they can’t be bought and flipped the next day. I can think of three buildings that were 100 percent pre- sold before I even went to the bank for a con- struction loan. If you pre-sell the units, you’ve basically eliminated the risk factor, as well as
44 RETROFIT // January-February 2013
sales commissions and the carrying costs of unsold, inventoried units. This was before the economy went south, but the market is coming back and we are undertaking an- other school in similar fashion in the spring.
r:
Do you encounter dis- senting voices in neigh- borhoods or city councils?
Noyes: Once we explain what we’re doing in a public arena there’s usually little oppo- sition. Saving a community asset, keeping a building people are familiar with in daily use and the fact that preservation is less expen- sive than new construction are embraced by communities. Once in awhile we come across concerns about traffic and congestion but housing actually generates fewer trips— an average of 1.4 trips per day per housing unit. Schools generate a lot more traffic.
r:
What are some of the biggest challenges of
developing schools for resi- dential use?
Noyes: The hardest thing in my mind is small buildings. A really small school that you’re making into a two-family space has almost no code issues; it’s like building a single-family house. At three units, it begins to get more difficult: You must add sprin- klers and barrier-free public spaces. It’s much easier in a lot of ways—though the risks are greater—if you’re doing 150 units of market- rate housing than it is to do three, four or 12 units. In fact, the job in Virginia started out with a very small school building—Roane School; it turned out to be 26 units. It was a great building, but it was too small and would be too expensive to seek subsidies and hire a general contractor to act as gener- al partner. We would’ve had to spread all the fixed costs over 26 units, which didn’t make financial sense. The local non-profit staff, once aware of this problem, mentioned that Lynchburg High School was vacant and only two blocks away. We ended up putting 76 units in it. Suddenly we had a 100-plus-unit